Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

UKIP doesn't have a grassroots and has to fight to keep the loonies out. Wavering Tories should be careful

Farage: a flair for publicity but no grassroots (Photo: Philip Hollis)

From Saturday's Daily Telegraph

The United Kingdom Independence Party is so obsessed with race, immigration and Islam that it might as well merge with the BNP. That’s the opinion of a professor at the London School of Economics.

No surprise there, you’re probably thinking. The LSE, like the rest of London University, is crawling with Left-wing dons who suck up to radical Muslims. Of course they hate Ukip, which this week edged into third place in the opinion polls.

But hang on a moment. The LSE professor I’m quoting actually founded Ukip. Alan Sked is an expert on the 19th-century Habsburg empire; in 1991 he set up a new party, then called the Anti-Federalist League, as a Eurosceptic alternative to the muddled Tories. It fielded candidates in the 1992 general election and as a result may have cost Chris Patten his seat, a historic achievement by any standards.

To cut a long story short, Sked fell out with Ukip after the 1997 election, saying that he’d created a Right-wing monster. He’s stuck to that line ever since. The stuff about Ukip merging with the BNP (“which it increasingly resembles”) comes from a letter to The Times in 2010.

I’m not quoting it because I agree with Sked. Founders of parties who have left after a blazing row are not always the most objective of commentators. We’re in People’s Front of Judea territory here – and that’s my point. This weekend, many Tories will be mulling over the polls and wondering if they should change allegiance. They should think twice.

Ukip hasn’t managed to free itself from the sectarian subculture that afflicts all small parties and religious groups. And there’s no evidence that it will ever do so.

Yes, it’s fun for professional Lib Dem haters to see Ukip pulling ahead of the Conservatives’ ghastly coalition partners, but don’t kid yourself: the combination of lack of grassroots and lack of proportional representation will prove as deadly as ever come the general election.

Breakaway groups that move away from the centre of gravity have a weakness in their DNA: they attract fanatics. Ukip is well aware of this. It hasn’t become “the BNP in blazers” – but only thanks to constant vigilance. Ukip has the same problem that breakaway Catholic traditionalists do: keeping racists away is hard work.

And what about all the conspiracy theorists who target conveniently naive gatherings of enthusiasts? Last week I was rung by an American complaining that the only British interest shown in a book raising doubts about Barack Obama’s birth certificate had come from Ukip.

Ah, say my Ukip-supporting friends, but you could never accuse the quirky and engaging Nigel Farage of extremist views. Perhaps not: even so, the YouTube clip of him haranguing Herman Van Rompuy in the European Parliament is a display of debating-society rudeness, not remotely in the same class as Dan Hannan’s evisceration of Gordon Brown.

Farage looked as if he was showing off for the benefit of his membership. But, to reiterate, he doesn’t have any grassroots. He has people who were part of the Tory grassroots; now they’ve left, bringing with them precious few rank-and-file Conservatives but lots of righteous anger.

Righteous and useless. David Cameron would like nothing better than to see proper Eurosceptics such as the magnificent Lord Tebbit leave his party for Ukip. Which is, of course, precisely why they shouldn’t. After all, it wasn’t the Tory grassroots who infiltrated the party of Margaret Thatcher: it was the former head of public relations for Carlton TV and his curious assortment of friends. So stay.

Get off your bike and into a cab

I’ve only myself to blame, but last year I succumbed to delusions of grandeur and opened an account with Addison Lee, the sleek minicab firm. Never again. The ads said I could save a third of the cost of taxi journeys. Sure – if I was in the habit of hailing a passing Space Shuttle.

Still, I enjoyed the rant by John Griffin, Addison Lee’s chairman, who reckons cyclists are making the roads more dangerous. I agree, but that’s only one of their crimes. Many’s the dinner party ruined by the arrival of the last guest: a helmet-clad cyclist stinking of sweat and self-righteousness – and a Liberal Democrat to boot.

Berlin’s loss is London’s gain

What a joy this week to hear Daniel Barenboim conduct Bruckner’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies with the Berlin Staatskapelle as part of the Southbank’s Shell Classic International series. Where other conductors explore the spirituality of Bruckner’s work, Barenboim guided us through its construction – the dovetailing of the violin line into a brass chorale, the leaping and twisting of melodies to create a symmetry worthy of Bach. Nice to see full houses, too, given that until a few years ago British audiences regarded Bruckner as an Austrian village idiot. Good old Barenboim: pushing 70, but still bounding on to the stage with teenage energy. I hate to sound unpatriotic, but I’m not sure the Berlin Phil made the right decision when it chose Simon Rattle over the Israeli maestro.

Finally, I see the point of Polly

I’m not sure what to make of Chris Grayling’s attack on members of “the Polly Toynbee Left”. No doubt the employment minister is right to say that their opinions display massive ignorance of the modern labour market (though they do tend to know the going rate for domestic help). But would we really want to be without the great lady herself?

A few years ago I was sitting on a plane a few seats away from Miss Toynbee. I was a nervous flier at the time, and as we hit turbulence I thought… well, I won’t spell it out, but it was something to do with every cloud having a silver lining.

Which was silly as well as wicked of me. Without Polly Toynbee, we might be taken in by the mwah-mwah kisses that BBC and public sector grandees shower on progressive Tories at drinks parties. She reminds us, in her Stalinist imperturbability, that deep down these people are still fighting the 1979 general election. Rumour has it that Polly hasn’t smiled since. Isn’t she splendid?

The PM’s Delightful love affair

The publication of Seasons in the Sun, Dominic Sandbrook’s history of the mid-Seventies, has reawakened interest in that glamorous era. The other day a younger colleague quizzed me about Angel Delight. I loved the stuff, though I haven’t eaten it for years. But my source in the Downing Street kitchens tells me that the Prime Minister is still loyal to his favourite childhood pud. “When he’s feeling peckish at Cabinet meetings, he’ll pretend to go to the loo and nip in for a quick bowl,” she says. What flavour? “Well, we call it butterscotch plus.” I can guess what’s coming. “A drizzle of cream makes his eyes light up. As they said in the Seventies, it makes simple things super. But don’t tell Mrs Cameron!”